doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com 28 bores and Georgia quail

[quote=coosa]Stan, that's also great info, and I didn't mean to imply that I thought the herbicide site prep is bad. It's what I've done with my property for all the recent site preps. Most of it was done by helicopter, and I did the edges myself with an ATV sprayer. It's easier on the land than using dozers because it doesn't disturb the topsoil and results in less erosion.

However, I think that the fact that the dozers disturbed the topsoil is the reason that method produced better quail habitat. All sorts of beneficial plants will sprout and grow if you disturb the topsoil in some way. There are some folks who mimic that effect now by disking between the pine rows each year. You don't have to plant anything to get the benefit; just run the disk through it and disturb the soil. I've done it some, but it's hard on my disk and I broke down last year before getting much done.}
Steve, Floyd and I ran the Muttpak on land where we found 7 wild coveys before 11 a.m. It had been selectively timbered and the land was scarified and no greenbriers had taken over. We went back a couple of years later and while we found a few birds, not as many as before, and greenbriers were dog nose high impeding their hunting. We then went to another section that had been selectively timbered with scarified ground and grasses and other plants taking over. We found the birds there. Gil

I seem to recall a group of posts where the turkey is the enemy of the quail. Some posts , above, don't seem to say that.

Daryl, there's a lot of grasping of straws for explanation for what is the enemy. Some say it's the federal law prohibiting the killing of raptors, coyotes, turkeys, uber efficient harvesting of grain crops, shrinking habitat, snakes, elimination of cover on field edges, pine plantations, cattle egrets, elimination of competing weeds in production fields, increased population (making room for folks eliminates habitat) and the list goes on.
There are parts of TX that have had for all time, coyotes, turkeys, raptors, snakes, not a drop of production grain farming, and despite what we in the SE blame for quail loss, are head over heels in numbers of wild quail. It's a riddle. Gil

Tell me where those parts of Texas are and I will go and shoot a few and report back!!!

The one thing those parts of Texas have that we also have is the eye worm, in quail. In fact, Texas is where they were discovered in quail.

I must still disagree that quail can thrive when all the controllables are restored. My neighboring landowner to the east is Wade Plantation. The owner also owns Milhaven Plantation which is separated from Wade by only one privately owned property. Together they comprise some 55,000, more or less, acres.
The owner strove for over 30 years to establish and maintain flourishing populations of wild quail. He employed Tall Timbers and Walt Rosene, who is an acknowledged master of wild bobwhite habitat and preservation, for many years.
The owner was hugely successful for a number of years, keeping very accurate and deliberate records of each hunt. At the high point the records indicated that Wade Plantation's dogs and hunters flushed 6.7 covey rises per hour of dogs on the ground, in that season. A couple years later it all crashed. Very few wild birds to be found, and this after literally millions of dollars had been spent in habitat restoration, feeding, predator control, etc. All those experts were called back in to diagnose the "disease" but eventually they threw in the towel and began stocking early release birds.

Until I am proven wrong I will always believe the crash was due to the eye worms. Texas is making inroads in controlling these parasites in quail, but again, I am pessimistic that they will ever come back like they were in the 60s, 70's and 80s.

They say you learn something everyday and today is one of those. I have never heard of eye worms in quail until reading your post Stanton. That sounds like as good a reason as any for the decline of wild quail. I hunted wild quail out on the west mesa here in Albuquerque when I moved here 32 years ago. That last for a very few seasons until the "settlers" and their countless houses came to the mesa. Now the only quail around this west side of Albuquerque seems to be in the yards of residents, especially those who put out seeds for them and the other birds. I did have a covey in my back yard until a demonic little boy with a BB gun demolished the entire covey. I have only been able to shoot released birds at a location south of here since then. I did, in a fit of weakness once, go to Kellers Farm Store and buy a couple of packages of dressed quail for a special dinner for my wife's birthday!! Oh well. It is what it is. I will have to be content to continue with early release birds. Of course, at 76 I can not walk as far anyway in search of wild ones.

Last I read on eye worms is that the biologists in TX are working on finding the best way to get antihelmitics into the wild quail's diet.

I hope they are successful.

This book gives the latest on eye worms, plant communities, harvest strategies, prescribed burning, supplemental feeding, predator control, etc. I found it very interesting, and it answered a lot of questions I had.

https://talltimbers.org/product/tall-timbers-bobwhite-quail-management-handbook/